Literary Analysis: Tone And Mood

Passage #7 “My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is a weathered shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon [peaceful] sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me.”                 -Rossetti, “A Birthday” Which word best describes the tone? In other words, how does the speaker feel about/toward the subject?

• A) Sorrow

• B) Happiness

• C) Excitement

• D) Nervousness

Passage #8 “There go the loves that wither [dry up], The old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither [there] And disastrous things; Dead dreams of days forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs. ... And love, grown faint and fretful With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure [last].”                 -Swinburne, “The Garden of Proserpine” What mood do the details in the poem convey?

• A) wastefulness and excess

• B) Happiness

• C) Sadness and despair

• D) Distrust

Passage #10 “The neighbors’ heads turned the afternoon the bus sputtered up the street and farted its way across our lot. . . .  Baba killed the engine and let the bus roll silently into our designated spot.  We sank in our seats, laughed until tears rolled down our cheeks, and, more important, until we were sure the neighbors weren’t watching anymore. The bus was a sad carcass of rusted metal, shattered windows replaced with black garbage bags, balding ties, and upholstery shredded down to the springs.”                   -Hosseini, The Kite Runner   What literary device used in this passage creates a giddy or silly mood?

• A) The example of personification in line 1: “the bus . . . farted its way across our lot.”

• B) The metaphor in line 4: “The bus was a sad carcass . . ."

• C) The image in line 5: “upholstery shredded down to the springs.”

• D) The idiom in line 2: “Baba Killed the engine. . .”

Passage #2 “There were always children there, and I spent all my time with the children, only with the children. They were the children of the village where I lived, a whole gang of them who went to the local school. I was simply with them mostly, and I spent all my four years like that. I did not want anything else.”                 --Dostoyevsky, The Idiot Which word best describes the tone? In other words, how does the speaker feel about/toward the subject?

• A) Amused

• B) Reflective

• C) Reverent

• D) Remorseful

Passage #4 “Afterwards we will be as one animal of the forest and be so close that neither one can tell that one of us is one and not the other. Can you not feel my heart be your heart?”                 --Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls Which word best describes the tone? In other words, how does the speaker feel about/toward the subject?

• A) somber

• B) intimate

• C) urgent

• D) factual

Passage #5 “But I felt after the novelty had worn off the Americans didn't really understand our music or our culture. Coming from a country where having central heating was considered posh and a refrigerator a luxury, Americans seemed to me to be strangely spoiled and 'old-fashioned.' They seemed to be lost in the forties and fifties. I expected to find Americans more forward and progressive but I was surprised to find many very set in their ways, just like their English counterparts.”                 --Davies, Kink Which word best describes the tone? In other words, how does the speaker feel about/toward the subject?

• A) hopeless

• B) remorseful

• C) disappointed

• D) sardonic

Passage #9 “The house itself was far from the sprawling white mansion I remembered from my childhood.  It looked smaller.  The roof sagged and the plaster was cracked.  The windows to the living room, the foyer and the upstairs guest bathroom were broken, patched haphazardly with sheets of clear plastic or wooden boards nailed across the frames.  Like so much else in Kabul, my father’s house was the picture of fallen splendor.”                 -Hosseini, The Kite Runner   What mood is communicated through the details in this passage?

• A) Detached

• B) Sentimental

• C) Threatening

• D) Excited

Passage #11 “ . . . by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.  How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form?  His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.  Beautiful!  Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.”                 -Shelley Frankenstein   What mood is communicated through the details in this passage?

• A) Bitterness

• B) Melancholy or sadness

• C) Horror

• D) Anger

Passage #3 “They showered me this morning at the courthouse and last night at the jail. And I swear I believe they'd of washed my ears for me on the taxi over if they coulda found the facilities. Hoo boy, seems like every time they ship me someplace I gotta get scrubbed down before, after, and during the operation--and get back away from me with that thermometer, Sam.”                 --Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest    Which word best describes the tone? In other words, how does the speaker feel about/toward the subject?

• A) disappointed

• B) condescending

• C) amused

• D) annoyed

Passage #6 “Henri the painter was not French and his name was not Henri. Henri had so steeped himself in stories of the Left Bank in Paris that he lived there although he had never been there. Feverishly he followed in periodicals the Dadaist movements and schisms, the strangely feminine jealousies and religiousness, the obscurantisms of the forming and breaking schools. Regularly he revolted against outworn techniques and materials. “One season he threw out perspective. Another year he abandoned red, even as the mother of purple. Finally he gave up paint entirely. It was not known whether Henri was a good painter or not for he threw himself so violently into movements that he had little time left for painting of any kind.”                 --Steinbeck, Cannery Row Which word best describes the tone? In other words, how does the speaker feel about/toward the subject?

• A) reverent

• B) apprehensive

• C) regretful

• D) amused

View the power point presentation on tone and mood before taking the quiz.